pkgsrc's guide mentions that there used to be a ${ARCH} variable that
expanded to the same value as "uname -m".
However, as the guide says, this feature was removed.
I have a package (wip/libmicro) where nearly all build and
installtation
scripts use the output of uname -m to generate binaries.
I currently use MACHINE_ARCH, which expands to `uname -p`.
Out of interest, for portability reasons, what would be advised to make
the whole thing more portable, both from an OS and architecture PoV?

This intersects a problematic area on AIX (see PR 29386/41410 and related

>threads on this list, like my 21/jul/2009 comment), and I am all in favor
>of creating a wrapper to generalize this for portability's sake.

Well, I am only missing a wrapper for the "uname -m", but did not manage
to find the reasons behind ${ARCH} removal.

What prevents the definition of such wrappers, like an ${HARDWARE_ARCH}
as equivalent to `uname -m`?